


Reverb

by veggiewolf



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi, Other, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, Post-Apocalypse, Reapers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:56:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27668531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veggiewolf/pseuds/veggiewolf
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian, Female Shepard/Liara T'Soni, Female Shepard/Tali'Zorah nar Rayya
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

"There was only one possible ending. No matter how often I thought about it, tried to plan or scheme, there was only one way that didn't rely on useless fantasizing. And so I didn't talk about it. Hearing it from my lips would have killed their hope that much sooner. And, regardless of my reputation, I was too weak to watch that spark die in front of me.

"I've never done anything by halves, so why would this be any different?

“I don’t know if I can talk about now, though. I can’t really reconcile what I planned and what happened. 

“They’ll care for me for the rest of their lives happily, without a second thought, and I can’t stop thinking about how wrong it all is.” 

She paused then, and unwound one of her arms from the blanket. With a shaking hand, she reached for the glass of water. Only a little spilled as she drank, slowly, then placed it back on the small table next to her. She wrapped herself back up and shivered, though the room was pleasantly warm from the sunlight flooding through the glass walls.

"Could I have another cover? My fucking body's always cold now."

The doctor went to the closet and pulled another blanket from the warming shelf. 

"Thanks." She bundled herself into it, closing her eyes for a minute.

"When we're done here, you can go back to the pools. The heat and the water are great healers." The doctor sat back down and made a couple of notes, deliberately leaving space for the patient to start talking again.

She did. "I'm tired, but I'm also tired of being tired. It was supposed to be over now, and it isn’t, and my body and mind are too weak to let me fix it."

"Too weak...in what way?"

"No. I don't want to talk about that right now. Let me...let me figure this out."

She paused. 

“Here’s the thing: if I try to think about the present and what comes next, my body fights me. It gives me other things to focus on and those things are usually pain. There are so few places where I don’t have pain. 

“I know they told you, right? I am most myself in the pools, in the heat and the wet, where my body has to give in and go with the flow, literally. I can just lie in the currents and drift, and it doesn’t hurt to be surrounded by so many people who are so happy that I’m here, and who planned and hoped for it. I can talk about  _ now _ with them, in the pools, because the water supports me and won’t let me fall. 

“I can participate and, for a moment, I am myself. And then I can be carried out, and fed, and sleep. But then I wake, and am back in my body, and I have to beg to be carried back to the water again. And they do it, because they love me and they don’t want me to be in pain. They want me to heal. But I don’t know if I can…”

She paused.

“I guess this is why I have to come out of the water to talk to you, right? Everything is muted in there.”

The doctor nodded. “They’re a tool for healing, not a permanent solution in any but the most extreme cases.”

“Okay. I'll back up. I'll start at the beginning and drag every last bit out into the light where it can be examined and poked and prodded and processed. Maybe then I'll be free like I was supposed to be.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Liara knew. This much I know - she knew, even though we never talked about it. Especially because we never talked about it. I don’t think she’d admit to it now, but I’m pretty sure she suspected even before we started trying to piece the Crucible together. She’d watch me just a little more intently, or she’d find a reason to check on me when she wouldn’t have normally done so.

“I wasn’t entirely sure why at that point, but...well, I realized she knew the day she brought me the time capsule. ‘In case things didn’t work out,’ she said, but she knew I’d want to leave a legacy regardless of outcome. At that point we thought each mission would be our last. Or, at least, I did.

“I don’t know if she talked to the others. I suspect she might have told Garrus, but not until we were closer to the end. Then again, I don’t know if he...if he could let himself think about how different this was from our previous “suicide” missions until it was right in front of him, demanding to be heard.”

She paused for a moment, closing her eyes against something.

“He talked about ‘after’. A lot. How we’d live our lives after everything was over and we could rest. Jokes about raising children, even though we can’t reproduce. He focused a lot on the risks I was taking and kept saying I shouldn’t try to ‘go it alone’. But it wasn’t until right before we went back to Earth that Garrus became so…I don’t even know what word to use. Not clingy, not demanding, not persistent, but a combination of all of those things.

“ _If_ Garrus knew, then he would have told Tali, which is why I think he probably didn’t know until it was too late to intervene. Tali definitely did not know - after Rannoch she was on such a high that I would have done anything to keep from spoiling it. 

“She’s the most positive of the four of us, and Rannoch was a light in the darkness for everyone - a safe place for the quarians while the war raged, an alliance with the geth, and a chance to build something new and beautiful. No, I don’t think Garrus would have wanted to break that spell, and Liara isn’t...wasn’t as close with Tali as with Garrus.

“And, none of them were as close with each other as they were with me...although that’s probably changed now. This morning all of them were in the pools with me, even Tali, and I got to close my eyes and listen to them talk and plan while I drifted.

She reached again for the glass of water, this time pushing the blankets down enough so both arms were free.

“They have plans for the house, did you know?”

The doctor nodded. “Tali’Zorah has been speaking with the staff here to try and make sure everything meets your needs and that you can keep up with your treatment once you leave.”

She smiled, just faintly, and took a long swallow from the glass.

“Tali’s planning her house. Well, _our_ house. She had plans this morning, plans drawn up on waterproof pages, and she's so...hopeful. Trying to fill me with hope that there’s a time after this and relying on the fact that I never want to be the one to force her back down to earth.

“That’s probably unfair of me. I don’t think she’s taking advantage, exactly. Just...trying to give me something to cling to if I won’t cling to any of them.”

She paused.

"Okay, talking about Tali and the house doesn't hurt. Okay. "

She smiled, just faintly.

“There's a room like this one in her plans, all in glass, filled with green plants and sunlight. A heated pool deep enough to drift away. A harness of sorts, to make sure I don't. There’s a courtyard in the center, open to the desert air, bedrooms surrounding it. Air and light and heat and water, and she thinks it might be finished just in time for us to decide where to go next.

“And then...I don’t know. I don’t know what comes next.”

“What do you want to happen next?” The doctor leaned forward slightly and opened her stance to be accepting and welcoming for confidences.

She laughed, then, which caught them both by surprise. Setting the glass back down so it wouldn’t fall, she said, “I have no fucking clue, doc. Isn’t that why I’m here?”


End file.
